Crop growers desire to plant their crops as early as possible so that they can obtain the highest available yield during the growing season. Crop growers with a large acreage to plant also want to begin planting as soon as possible. Early planting, however, is not without risks. One risk is that the crops will be exposed to cold temperatures that may cause the seedlings or plants to suffer damage or death. Cold temperatures cause millions of dollars of damage to crops each year. In some parts of the United States, cold temperatures can occur at any time during the growing season. Cold temperature damage is most common, however, in the Spring when the plants are vulnerable.
Unfortunately if cold temperature damage occurs to a grower's crops, the grower is then faced with a dilemma. Currently growers must either replant their fields immediately, or wait for several days to see if their plants recover and then decide if they should replant their fields. If the growers wait for several days to see if their plants recover and the damaged plants do not, then they have wasted valuable time before replanting and further reduced their potential yields. If the plants appear to recover and the growers do not replant, then the growers will be concerned about the negative impacts on yield for the rest of the growing season. If the growers replant their crops, then they are spending valuable resources on damage mitigation that could have been spent elsewhere.
Accordingly, there is a need for new methods to assist growers when cold temperature damage occurs. The method should be easy to administer and provide excellent cold temperature damage recovery. The method should provide increased yield when the crops are damaged by cold temperatures.